Joseph Rodman Drake 
PARK 



ADDRESS OF 

JAMES L. WELLS 

REPRESENTING THE NORTH SIDE BOARD OF TRADE AT THE 

PUBLIC HEARING BY THE BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND 

APPORTIONMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

SEPTEMBER i6th, 1904 




PRINTED PURSUANT TO A RESOLUTION OF 
THE NORTH SIDE BOARD OF TRADE 



Joseph Rodman Drake 
PARK 



ADDRESS OF 

JAMES L. WELLS 

REPRESENTING THE NORTH SIDE BOARD OF TRADE AT THE 

PUBLIC HEARING BY THE BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND 

APPORTIONMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

SEPTEMBER i6th, 1904 




PRINTED PURSUANT TO A RESOLUTION OF 
THE NORTH SIDE BOARD OF TRADE 






By tranafftT 




Copy^faHr 3ir</MS. c. h^ZZ S /ass "P"^' 



THE GRAVE OF 

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE 

IN THE " OLD HUNT BURYING GROUND 

hunt's point road 
borough of the bronx, city of new york 



" None knew him but to love him 
Nor named him but to praise." 

Fiiz- Greene Halleck. 



y/?^ 



GREEN BE THE TURF. 



Written at the old Hunt Grange, still standing at Hunt's Point, by Fitz-Greene Halleclc in memory 
of his friend and companion Joseph Rodman Drake, a few days after his death, September 21st, 1820. 



Green be the turf above thee, 
Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 
Nor named thee but to praise. 

Tears fell when thou wert dying, 
From eyes unused to weep, 
And long, where thou art lying, 
Shall tears the cold turf steep. 

When hearts whose truth was proven, 
Like thine, are laid in earth, 
There should a wreath be woven 
To tell the world their worth. 

And I who wake each morrow. 
To clasp thy hand in mine. 
Who shared thy joy and sorrow. 
Whose weal and woe were thine — 

It should be mine to braid it 
Around thy faded brow; 
But I've in vain assayed it 
And feel I cannot now. 

While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts, nor words are free, 
The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee. 



ADDRESS OF JAMES L. WELLS. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment : 

The North Side Board of Trade is represented here this morning 
by a large committee, and desires to be heard in relation to the resolu- 
tion providing for laying out Joseph Rodman Drake Park in the 
Borough of The Bronx. The Taxpayers' Alliance, The Brownson 
Catholic Club, The Bronx League, The New York Historical Society, 
The Society for the Preservation of Scenic and Historical Places and 
Objects and The West Chester County Historical Society are also rep- 
resented here by committees and are interested with us in the resolu- 
tion now under consideration. 

The North Side Board of Trade has requested me to address you 
in its behalf. 

Tlie resolution before your Board provides for laying out a park 
two hundred feet square, bounded by the Eastern Boulevard, Long- 
fellow and Whittier Streets, and a proposed new street fifty feet wide 
and two hundred feet in length, extending from Longfellow to Whit- 
tier Street. This resolution is based upon the unanimous action of the 
Local Board of Morrisania, approved by President Haffen, recom- 
mending laying out such a public park. 

A proposition has recently been made in, but not approved by, the 
public press, to remove from the Old Hunt Burying Ground to Guil- 
ford, Connecticut, the remains of that distinguished American poet, 
Joseph Rodman Drake, and the monument that marks his grave. The 
reason assigned for doing so is that no provision has been made to 
protect them in their present location. The action of the Local Board 
of Morrisania is designed to prevent this removal. It has been taken 
in compliance with a universal popular sentiment that The City of 
New York should now adopt some positive measure that will result in 
the preservation and care of this grave and monument. 

The North Side Board of Trade sustains the action of our Local 
Board and President Hafifen in presenting this matter to the Board of 
Estimate and Apportionment. An opportunity is thus afforded us to 
bring before you the broader proposition of laying out and acquiring 
a park sufificiently large to include the entire Hunt Burying Ground 
and thus preserve not only Drake's grave and monument, but also the 
graves of other distinguished men. 

The final maps of The Bronx show that it is proposed in the near 
future to construct a public road, called Whittier Street, sixty feet 
wide, directly through this Hunt Burying Ground, which is only one 
hundred and thirty-three feet in width. Only a small irregular por- 

5 



ti'on of the graveyard, about two and one-half city lots, will be left on 
the westerly side of Whittier Street. This small, irregular plot will be 
just within the limits of the little two hundred feet square park pro- 
vided for in the resolution now before this Board. Drake's grave and 
monument will be in this little plot and so near to the westerly line of 
Whittier Street that they are certain to be most seriously injured by 
the work of regulating and grading the roadway. 

The preservation of Drake's grave will therefore not be accom- 
plished by the laying out and acquisition of the diminutive park now 
proposed. 

It is not an exaggerated expression to assert that the mutilation 
of any part of this historic cemetery would be vandalism of the worst 
kind and a lasting disgrace to The City of New York. Besides this, 
it certainly is the height of irony that the name of a renowned Quaker 
poet should be given to a public road the construction of which will 
destroy an old Quaker graveyard and injure a brother poet's tomb. 

The larger part of the Hunt Cemetery containing the graves of 
men distinguished for their zealous advocacy of principles cherished 
by every true American citizen will be totally obliterated by the con- 
struction of Whittier Street as now laid out. 

The North Side Board of Trade feels confident that it can appeal 
successfully to the patriotism of this Board to prevent this needless 
and reckless desecration. 

It can be prevented now at a very moderate expense by changing 
the final maps of The Bronx, by discontinuing Whittier Street between 
the Eastern Boulevard and E^st Bay Avenue and by acquiring for a 
public park about six acres in area, the land between the Eastern 
Boulevard, East Bay Avenue, Longfellow and Halleck Streets. Two 
of these blocks, that is, the land between the Eastern Boulevard, East 
Bay Avenue, Whittier and Halleck Streets, containing, exclusive of 
the new Hunt's Point Road recently acquired by the city, about four 
acres in all, have already been designated on the final maps as public 
places. The addition suggested by the North Side Board of Trade 
would add only about two acres to the area already marked as public 
places, although not yet acquired. 

If, however, in the judgment of this Board, it should be deemed 
inadvisable for the city to acquire quite so large an area as just men- 
tioned, then the North Side Board of Trade suggests that the trian- 
gular block on the easterly side of the New Hunt's Point Road be 
omitted, thus reducing the area about one acre. 

The adoption of either of these propositions would preserve intact 
the entire Hunt Cemetery. 

Action in this matter, in the opinion of the North Side Board of 
Trade, ought to be taken without delay on account of the present low 

6 



price of the land, and for the further reason, that the development o£ 
the Hunt's Point section is certain to follow the operation of the New 
York Rapid Transit System, the extensive improvements about to 
begin on the Harlem River Branch of the New Haven Railroad and 
the constructic«i of other railroads now seeking privileges to cross 
streets in that portion of the city. 

Even though a public park may not be necessary at the present 
time, it is only a question of a few years when it will be. The present 
is therefore an opportune time to acquire the necessary land and at the 
same time prevent the destruction of one of the city's venerable and 
historic landmarks. 

The most forcible arguments that can be advanced for the preser- 
vation of this little cemetery are unquestionably the historic associa- 
tions to which reference has already been made. 

For nearly two centuries and a half the little hillock on the north- 
erly side of the Old Colonial Road to the Point has been known as the 
Hunt Burying Ground. This quaint old cemetery is less than half an 
acre in area. There are, however, but few places, if any, within the 
limits of our city or state about which cluster so many interesting 
and instructive reminiscences of the colonial and revolutionary periods 
of our country. It is a sacred shrine to which even the most exalted 
personages in our land could profitably repair and pause awhile in 
silent meditation, as did Lafayette when he revisited our country in 
1824. 

Permit me to recall to your minds the names of some of the sturdy 
patriots interred within this modest inclosure and the important events 
in the history of our state and nation with which they are indissolubly 
connected. 

In an unmarked grave, within the lines of Whittier Street, have 
peacefully rested since the autumn of 1666 the remains of Magistrate 
Edward Jessup, commonly known among the people of his day as 
Good-man Jessup. This Yorkshire Puritan was one of the two original 
patentees of all that portion of The Bronx, about 1,300 acres, called 
by the Indians Quinnahong and by the English settlers the Great 
Planting Neck, situated between the Sacrahong, now known as Leg- 
gett's Creek, and the Bronx River, and extending from Long Island 
Sound to i82d Street, near Third Avenue. Edward Jessup was re- 
markable, not simply because he was a descendant of an ancient and 
illustrious English family, a magistrate and a large land owner, but 
because he was a brave, daring, upright man, full of restless energy 
and the recognized champion of the rights of the colonists. Historians 
inform us that shortly. after he settled on his land he was threatened 
with banishment from the Dutch colony because he refused to take the 
oath of allegiance to the Director-General, Peter Stuyvesant. They 

7 



also inform us that he was one of Westchester's two delegates to the 
Convention of Towns held at Hempstead, Long Island, in February, 
1665, for the purpose of receiving from Richard Nicholls, the English 
Governor, the code prepared by him and which was called "the Duke's 
Laws." This convention is said to be the first representative and de- 
liberative body that assembled in the colony. On the floor of the 
convention Edward Jessup boldly advocated the right of the people to 
elect their own magistrates instead of having those officers appointed 




EASTERN 



BOULEVARD 



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EAST 



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* Plan with Street Througrh Cemetery. 

by the Governor. This right was denied. The convention, however, 
is referred to as the origin of the elective judiciary system of our 
state — a system which has been aptly described as "the growth of the 
soil." Edward Jessup was the progenitor of several who became dis- 



* Above diagram shows the street system affecting the Old Hunt Burial Ground and grave of 
Joseph Rodman Dralte, copied from plate 18, "Atlas of the City of New York, Borough of the Bronx, 
sections 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13, from actual surveys and official plans by George W. & Walter Bromley, 
Civil Engineers, published by G. W. Bromley & Co., Philadelphia, 1904." 

Only the two triangular public places were included on the filed maps; the shaded square in which 
is the Drake grave, and the new short street to the left of Whittier Street, were since added in response 
to public sentiment; but it will be noticed that Whittier Street still cuts through the cemetery. 



tinguished in the annals of our country. Among them was Major- 
General Thomas Sidney Jessup, a hero of our Second War for Inde- 
pendence and the Mexican War and who was prominently mentioned 
as a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. 

Near the grave of Edward Jessup are the final resting places of 
his daughter, Elizabeth, a remarkable woman of her time, and his son- 
in-law, Thomas Hunt. This Thomas Hunt was the son of Thomas 
Hunt, of the Grove Farm, who was one of John Throgmorton's thirty- 



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Plan Proposed by North Side Board of Trade 



five English families that came from Rhode Island in 1642 and settled 
in West Chester in order that they might enjoy religious freedom. 
Thomas Hunt, the son-in-law of Edward Jessup, was a delegate to the 
celebrated Colonial Assembly that met at Fort James in this city on 
October 17, 1683. This was the first General Assembly of the Colony 
of New York. Its first Act was the passage of the memorable Charter 
of Liberties and Privileges, which boldly proclaimed for the first time 



* Above diagram shows Joseph Rodman Drake Park as proposed by Albert E. Davis, President of 
the North Side Board of Trade. Shaded pentagon indicates cemetery; small black oblong. Drake 
grave; dotted line, the Old Hunt's Point Road, which is to be discontinued. 



in America that "supreme legislative power shall forever be and reside 
in the Governor, Council and People met in General Assembly." It 
further provided for liberty of conscience, freedom of suffrage, trial 
by jury, no taxation without representation, no quartering of troops on 
the people, and no martial law ; in a word, the sovereignty of the people 
and the equality of all men under the law — the principles that years 
afterwards found expression in the Declaration of Independence and 
have since become the organic law of the land. Delegate Thomas Hunt 
naturally stood for these principles and voted for the Charter. Not- 
withstanding its approval by Governor Dongan, the Charter was 
vetoed by James II. because it "does abridge the King's power" and 
because the phrase "People met in General Assembly" was objection- 
able and was "not found in any other Constitution in America." On 
account of its passage of this Charter the Assembly was disbanded by 
the King. 

"The character of this Charter," says an official publication of our 
state, "places New York in advance of any other colony and proves 
that it held the leadership in the struggle for equal rights and ancient 
liberties." 

A distinguished historian says, "It was the full fruitage of free- 
dom, bursting the shell of feudalism and clothing itself in a more per- 
fect organic form, evolved from ancient systems which had become 
incapable of preserving and protecting the liberties of the people." 

"This act," says another, "proves its authors worthy descendants 
of a liberty-loving ancestry and the true progenitors of the founders of 
American liberties." 

Surely the grave of Delegate Thomas Hunt ought to be saved 
from desecration by those who glory in and enjoy the benefits of the 
great principles which this faithful representative of the people advo- 
cated. 

In this cluster of graves which will be destroyed by the opening 
of Whittier Street is one that contains the remains of Thomas Hunt 
the third, an Alderman and Freeholder of the ancient Borough of 
Westchester in 1729. He was the father of the Revolutionary patriot, 
Thomas Hunt the fourth, and grandfather of Montgomery Hunt, a 
noted financier, a Presidential Elector in 18 16, who voted for James 
Monroe for President, and who was the father of that eminent jurist. 
Judge Ward Hunt, of the Court of Appeals of this state and of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, by appointment of President 
Ulysses S. Grant. 

North of the old Hunt's Point Road, near the line of Whittier 
Street, is the simple stone that marks the grave of tlie revered 
Patriot, the peaceful Quaker, Thomas Hunt the fourth, who died, like 
Adams, Jefferson and Monroe, on the anniversary of our National In- 



dependence. The inscription on this stone appropriately portrays 
the character of the man: "He possessed the cardinal virtues to an 
eminent degree: he was temperate, brave, patient and just: the solid 
rock shall sink beneath the iron hand of Time, but virtue dwells with 
immortality." 

This Thomas Hunt, so historians tell us, was the associate of the 
prominent men of his time in all matters pertaining to the separation of 
the colony from the mother country. He was active in sending dele- 
gates to the first Continental Congress. He was an influential member 
of the Committee of Safety. He was instrumental in organizing the 
West Farms and Fordham Company of Minute Men, in which seven 
members of his own family enlisted. During the War for Indepen- 
dence he was attached to the American Army. He was the friend and 
confident of Washington, and upon his calm judgment, his patriotic 
courage and his thorough knowledge of the country our great chieftain 
implicitly relied. A British frigate was kept at anchor in the Sound 
near his house, his estate was devastated and his family driven from 
their home. After the Revolution he served the people as the Super- 
visor of the Town of West Chester. 

The great City of New York should not permit his humble grave 
to be despoiled, his monument destroyed and his illustrious remains to 
be scattered to the winds. 

Time will not permit me, except in the briefest possible way, to 
refer to other distinguished men who are interred in this historic bury- 
ing ground, which is now in danger of destruction. Among them are 
the sturdy pioneer, John Richardson, the joint patentee with Edward 
Jessup, the active and courageous Gabriel Leggett, son-in-law of John 
Richardson and father of William Leggett, Alderman in 1730, Mayor 
of the Borough of West Chester in 1734 and Judge of West Chester 
County in 1752. There, too, rests his son, Abraham Leggett, the asso- 
ciate of Thomas Hunt, the patriot, on the Committee of Safety, and in 
raising the West Farms and Fordham Company of Minute Men, in 
which several of his family enlisted. He served the people after the 
Revolution as an efficient Supervisor of the Town of West Chester. 

The littk cemetery is also the final resting place of veterans of the 
various colonial wars and continental soldiers, members of the Hunt^ 
Leggett and Willett families. The inscriptions on their primitive grave- 
stones have become illegible by the lapse of time. They should be al- 
lowed to sleep on in their honored graves "with all their country's 
wishes blest." 

A few feet south of the grave of Thomas Hunt, the patriot, is the 
modest monument erected by sorrowing friends to mark the grave of 
that gifted young poet, Joseph Rodman Drake, the son of Col. Jon- 
athan Drake, of the Continental Army, and a lineal descendant of a 



member of the famous Plymouth Colony. The storms of over three 
quarters of a century have not effaced from that monument the couplet 
adapted from the tender verses of Drake's life-long friend and com- 
panion, Fitz-Greene Halleck : 

"None knew him but to love him, 
Nor named him but to praise." 

We feel that it is hardly necessary for us to remind a New York 
Board of Estimate and Apportionment that Drake was a native of The 
City of New York, that he was educated in this city, that here he prac- 
ticed his profession as a physician .and achieved distinction as a poet, 
that his boyhood days were passed in that portion of the city now 
known as the Borough of The Bronx, that its beautiful scenery and 
patriotic traditions gave inspiration to his verses, and that when death 
ended his brilliant, yet sad and pathetic life, he was interred in the Old 
Hunt Burying Ground, as he wished to be, among his beloved friends 
and near his good old grandmother, the wife of Thomas Hunt, the 
patriot, who had sheltered and cared for him when bereaved of his 
parents. 

Drake's stirring apostrophe to the American flag, the melodious 
music and graceful imagery of the Culprit Fay, and his charming de- 
scription of the rural beauties of the Bronx have immortalized him 
and are so familiar to the lovers of poetry everywhere that only this 
brief reference is necessary in this appeal to protect his grave. 

It certainly must have been an oversight in making the final maps 
of this part of The Bronx to designate as a public place or park the 
land on the southerly side of the Old Hunt's Point Road, where rest 
the remains of Bill, the colored pilot of the ill-fated British frigate 
Hussar, and of the slaves of the colonists, while no provision was made 
to preserve the graves of the noble patriots who did so much to make 
freedom for all the fundamental principle of our Republic. 

The Board of Estimate and Apportionment, we feel sure, will not 
delay in correcting this strange oversight, but will take such action as 
will prevent the burial place of these historic men, as well as this bril- 
liant poet, from being obliterated. Favorable action in this matter will 
reflect credit upon the members of this Board. It will meet the hearty 
approval of our citizens generally. Let New York act in this matter 
with its characteristic patriotism and generosity. 







THE AMERICAN FLAG. 



When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 

She tore the azure robe of night, 
And set the stars of glory there; 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 

And striped its pure, celestial white 

With streakings of the morning light, 
Then, from his mansion in the sun, 

She called her eagle bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

Majestic monarch of the cloud ! 

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud. 

And see the lightning lances driven. 
When strive the warriors of the storm, 

And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven — 
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given 

To guard the banner of the free. 
To hover in the sulphur smoke. 
To ward away the battle-stroke. 

And bid its blendings shine afar. 

Like rainbows on the cloud of war. 
The harbingers of victory ! 



Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 
The sign of hope and triumph high, 
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone. 
And the long line comes gleaming on; 
Ere yet the lifeblood, warm and wet, 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet. 
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn 
To where the sky-born glories burn, 
And, as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud. 
And gory sabres rise and fall 
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, 
Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath 
Each gallant arm that strikes below 

That lovely messenger of death. . 



Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, 
And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to Heaven and thee. 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome. 
And all thy hues were born in Heaven ! 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us? 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet. 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us! 
— ^Joseph Rodman Drake. 



13 



TOUCH NOT THAT GRAVE! 



(Lines on the proposed opening of a street and thereby desecrating the grave of Joseph Rodman 
Drake, a gifted poet, and author of (he Immortal poem, "The American Flag," who died In 1820 at the 
age of 25, and lies burled at Hunt's Point.) 

Vandals, forbear. Lift not your hand, 

Nor touch yon hallow'd, sacred spot. 
Though greed and lust stalk through the land 

And patriotism be well-nigh forgot. 

Beneath that lowly, crumbling mound, 

Which ye in callous lust have spurn'd, 
A patriot lies by Freedom crown'd, 

Where once the fires of genius burn'd. 

While yet life's hills were fair and green. 

And lingering youth lost not its bloom. 
He parted from the transient scene. 

And donned the cerements of the tomb. 

But ere departing,, from his pen 

Unto his country's flag he gave 
Imperishable to patriot men 

A glory which survives the grave. 

Upon that flag against the sky 

That proudly floats o'er land and sea 
He looked with raptur'd beaming eye 

And wrote its song of liberty. 

"When Freedom from her mountain height 

Unfurl'd her standard to the air," 
Can ye that meaning read aright 

And not your lifted hand forbear? 

Those burning words from mouth to mouth 

Which once defied the touch of time. 
From East to West, from North to South, 

In every age, in every clime. 

Far greater than in halls of fame, 

Have they no meaning now as then. 
When patriotism's stirring flame 

They kindled in the hearts of men? 

Which kindled once can never die; 

But were no voice to raise protest, 
Those very mouldering stones would cry 

That mark his peaceful, lasting rest. 

Then enter not upon that sod, 

And may that spade forever rust 
Ere it turn up one hallow'd clod 

Or yet disturb that sacred dust. 

So rouse ye patriots thro' the land 

Within whose hearts that flag holds sway 
And to the cold despoiler's hand 

In thundering tones cry, Stay! 

— J. H. Warper. 



14 



The following communications were submitted at the hearing by 
Albert E. Davis, President of the North Side Board of Trade : 

EDITORIAL DEPARXMe^s|-^ 

THE CENTURY MAOAZINE 

UNION S<2UARE, N.Y. 

Sept. 14, 1904. 
To the Honorable Board of 

Estimate and Apportionment, of 
the City of New York. 
Dear Sirs : — 

I beg leave heartily to support the request of the North Side Board 
of Trade in favor of the proposed Joseph Rodman Drake Park. I do this as a 
citizen, interested in the good name of our city, and in the fame of our distin- 
guished men; and also as representing the wishes of my wife, who is a grand- 
daughter of the poet. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Richard Watson Gilder. 



Profile House, N. H., Sept. 12, 1904. 
Mr. Albert E. Davis, 

494 East 138th St., N. Y. City. 
Dear Sir: — 

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your favor of the 6th inst. referring to 
the proposed park at Hunt's Point. I am very sorry that I cannot be present at 
the hearing on the i6th, but I have written to some of the members of the Board 
of Estimate, with whom I am personally acquainted, and have asked some of my 
friends to do the same. 

I am interested in this matter, not only as a life long resident of the Bronx, 
but as a representative of the New York Historical Society and the Westchester 
County Society. The members of both of these societies desire to encourage this 
good work, and it is my intention to have proper resolutions passed at the October 
meeting, not having expected a hearing to take place sooner. 
Hoping that your efforts may be successful, I remain. 

Very truly yours, 

Frederick W. Jackson. 



The Waumbek, Jefferson, N. H., Sept. 8, 1904. 
Dear Sir : — 

I most cordially concur in your effort to save the burial place of Joseph 
Rodman Drake, and others, who rest in the natural mound, so well adapted for a 
public park. For many years I have advocated this by pen and voice, and regret 
that my probable absence from the city on the sixteenth inst. will prevent my being 
present at the proposed meeting at that date. 

Very truly yours, 

Jas. Grant Wilson. 
Albert E. Davis, Esq., President. 

15 



Press of Kiesling Bros. 
623 East 148th St., N. Y. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




